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Next time you want somebody ruined, call me up

I have no idea what happened with Livejournal yesterday, except it was out of sorts to the degree that I appear to have an extra day on my paid account. That's nice?

1. My story "The Boy Who Learned How to Shudder," originally published in Sirenia Digest #9, has been accepted for reprint by Aliens: Recent Encounters, edited by Alex Dally MacFarlane (Prime Books, June 2013). It is the only science fiction story I've ever had published and I blame

greygirlbeast for giving it a reason to exist. There are tentacles and storytelling. Everybody look surprised.

2. I remain amused and strangely pleased that

rushthatspeaks and I managed to see a special effects extravaganza on Monday night that had nothing to do with Peter Jackson. F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926) at the Coolidge Corner Theatre with a new score by the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra. As a version of the Faust story, it is nothing to write home about, but as a moving, three-dimensional realization of woodcuts and icons and medieval nightmares, it's almost unparalleled. Fantasia's "Night on Bald Mountain" stole shamelessly from this film. So did Ingmar Bergman, unless they were just working off the same church paintings. The opening image is straight out of Dürer, a grotesque hag-ride of demons on their skeletal, fire-snorting beasts through pitchy air. When plague comes to Faust's village, it is because the Devil with his great sky-blotting wings has opened them over the town and pestilence billows as choking black smoke from their shadow. (I do not know what Murnau's thing about plague was, but here as in Nosferatu he depicts it brilliantly.) Emil Jannings is nothing like the Mephisto I imagine, having been brought up on Marlowe before Goethe or any of his succeeding operas, but he's a gleeful devil of the folktale kind—the film's subtitle is Eine deutsche Volkssage—with very little of Satanic grandeur about him, instead a casual, sly, mocking malevolence that is often very funny (Faust flees from him at the crossroads only to find the demon sitting at every turn of the road home, tipping his cap with an impeccable, knowing courtesy as his eyes glow like mirrors above his wide, nearly frog-mouthed grin) without once passing for human. He is evil, actively as well as incarnate. He destroys Gretchen, as far as we could tell, simply because it irks him that Faust wants an innocent rather than one of the worldly seductresses Mephisto could fix him up with any day of the week. And it takes this Faust by surprise; he keeps forgetting that what he's made a pact with (the words writing themselves backwards on the parchment in scrolls of smoke, hell-scripted) is not honorable and has no interest in keeping its word beyond the letter of whatever will ensnare the former scholar deeper into damnation, since the dominion of the earth is at stake. No one in this version, in fact, keeps their promises, possibly not even Heaven. I should still like to see what else Gösta Ekman did before his death from irony (no one should ever acquire a fatal drug addiction while playing the title role in Faust) and Rush and I are agreed that we want to see Sunrise (1927) next. Maybe it will tell us how we were supposed to read that ending.

3. On

handful_ofdust's recommendation,

derspatchel and I have now seen and thoroughly enjoyed James Cagney in Picture Snatcher (1933). It's one of his pre-Code programmers, the American studio system equivalent of a British quota quickie—Rob accurately describes Cagney as "one of the great fast talkers of all time" and even a 77-minute movie can barely keep up with him as it rackety-bangs from one plot twist to the next with the same cheerful amorality as its protagonist, a newly paroled ex-gonif whose idea of going straight is getting himself hired as a reporter by the Weegee-lite scandal sheet whose city editor once drunkenly gave him his card in Sing Sing. He always wanted to be a newspaperman. Bullets don't faze him and he loves nothing better than finagling his way into somewhere he's not supposed to be. One smoothly conned victim and one sensational front-page photo later, Danny Kean's the darling of the New York City Graphic News, even if he does have to keep ducking into the washroom when angry members of the public come looking for him. Rather charmingly, the film never bothers to give him the expected crisis of conscience: when his latest coup (lifted straight from the infamous ankle-camera photo of Ruth Snyder) threatens his romance with a police lieutenant's daughter, Danny squares things with the old man by making him look good in the aftermath of his next star-making snap (the climax of a police shootout with his former associate Jerry the Mug, whom Danny thoughtfully pictures at the moment of ventilation. Jerry brought his wife and child to use as shields in a firefight, though, so I don't think we're supposed to grieve too much over that fusillade he takes in the back). It's a typically breezy solution to a question a Hays Code film would have felt compelled to answer with some moments of sober reflection and probably a comeuppance or two. Here, so what if crime doesn't pay? Take a picture: it won't just last longer, as a career choice it'll substantially decrease your chances of getting jailed and/or shot.

Picture Snatcher is Cagney's show and he lights up every moment of it, jaunty, cocky, scrappy and just so damn pleased with himself—the laughter he can't keep down is a raucous, infectiously snickering hoot that's just this side of Woody Woodpecker, it has to be heard to be believed. Unsurprisingly, I am also charmed by his editor, who doesn't steal scenes so much as he knocks back his hat and slopes into them: he's played by Ralph Bellamy several years in advance of The Awful Truth (1937) or His Girl Friday (1940), which means that instead of a straitlaced second banana who can't compete with Cary Grant, "Mac" McLean is a lanky, cynical hard-luck case who owes his current presence at the Graphic News to the exact opposite course as Danny Kean. For Danny, it's the first step toward an honest living, or at least a more honest living than outright sticking people up for cash. For Mac, it's the last rag in town willing to keep him on staff after he drank himself out of work at every respectable paper. They make a nice double-act, Danny all irrepressible spring and boundless chutzpah (the raspberry salute he blows the rest of the press corps as he gets away with a literally stolen picture his first day on the job) and Mac the wearily resigned but not extinguished (making only the most token efforts not to be caught drinking on the job: I am rather fond of the way he actually pours himself a drink every time, then crumples the little cellophane cup as though no one's going to notice the litter around his desk at the end of the day) who'll back his friend on every hare-brained scheme and occasionally instigate few of his own. Visually, too: Bellamy has half a foot on Cagney, easy, and their one fight scene veers in and out of physical comedy (in filming, it was apparently something of a farce). I really want to see what else he's done that wasn't the usual screwball foil.

(I also think it is entirely possible this movie has the best trailer I have ever seen. I don't want to spoil anything. Just don't blame me if it gets stuck in your head.)

4. We also watched A Wish for Wings That Work (1992). I'd never seen it. Apparently Berkeley Breathed feels ambivalently at best about the adaptation, but I thought it was wonderful. Whoever was voicing Bill the Cat made exactly the right hacking sounds.

5. Have a fascinating article about opium smoking, courtesy of

rushthatspeaks.

This is not an organized year for Christmas desserts. The plum pudding was just started tonight and the fruitcakes have been chopped for, but not baked. There is a batch and a half of fudge cooling in the refrigerator. I'm going to bed anyway.

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Re: A Wish for Wings That Work: I don't know who played Bill, but in the Flightless Bird Therapy Group the Kiwi is voiced by an uncredited Robin Williams. ("She made off with an AALbatross!")

but in the Flightless Bird Therapy Group the Kiwi is voiced by an uncredited Robin Williams. ("She made off with an AALbatross!")

derspatchel mentioned that!

"She wants 'em big? MARRY THE SPACE SHUTTLE, YA SHREW!"

Congratulations on the acceptance!

I'm glad the Faust and the pre-Code James Cagney film were pleasing.*

Thanks for linking the Youtube of A Wish for Wings That Work. I remember the book, but I've never seen the animation.

Good luck with the Christmas desserts! I hope you find restful sleep tonight.

*Mattie Connolly, a brilliant piper and singer whose daughter Deirdre was with Cherish the Ladies for a while, has a set of uillean pipes that belonged to James Cagney. Nobody seems to know if Cagney was any good as a piper, but they're a lovely set of pipes and I've always appreciated that he appreciated them. I'd forgot about that, actually, until just now--the next time I see the James Cagney I'm acquainted with (grand old gentleman from County Cork), I'll have to tell him.

Congratulations on the acceptance!

Thank you! Now I just need more new stories.

a set of uillean pipes that belonged to James Cagney. Nobody seems to know if Cagney was any good as a piper, but they're a lovely set of pipes and I've always appreciated that he appreciated them.

Okay, that's neat. I had no idea.

Thank you! Now I just need more new stories.

You're welcome! May some come to you soon.

I can relate to this, actually. The novella I'm trying to finish right now has been stalling at 22k of maybe 30-35k; partly due to recent local events, but still... An earlier attempt to write it stalled somewhere before 10k. I'm not going to start at the beginning again. And when that's done I really need some stories shorter and easier to sell.

Okay, that's neat. I had no idea.

I'd no idea until one evening some years back at a concert Mattie told the story. It wasn't the first I'd seen him play, and I don't know if he'd only just recently got that set, or if the thought that he should say something about their provenance hadn't hit him before.

I loved A Wish for Wings That Work. I still sometimes try to wake up the same way Bill does here: http://youtu.be/3Iv7VPhMZbg?t=2m45s. (Edited to fix link. Stupid link.)

Edited 2012-12-20 12:17 (UTC)

I still sometimes try to wake up the same way Bill does here

I've felt my eyes do that.

"I suggested that you move into the recyclables can, didn't I?"

IIRC Picture Snatcher also has a scene in which Cagney rattles off what a story to the newspaper's stenographer, whose typing speed is able to keep with him; she then reads it back and we realize she's already edited everything he said into a passable reporting style, on the fly, and he comments, impressed, "I didn't know i could write that well."

Yeah, if it's meant to give an impression that all tabloid reporters and support staff are reprehensible hacks, it sort of fails--those people work damn hard, and they make it look so FUN.

Yeah, if it's meant to give an impression that all tabloid reporters and support staff are reprehensible hacks, it sort of fails--those people work damn hard, and they make it look so FUN.

Agreed. I really think the film is moving too fast to moralize—everybody who works at the Graphic News knows it's such a tenth-rate rag the journalism students only visit to learn what not to do (which gives me an excuse to mention how much I loved Sterling Holloway's uncredited bit part, earnest and pretentious in horn-rims older than he is) and probably even Allison wouldn't mind a byline at a better grade of paper, but in the meantime everybody's doing the best they can with what they've got. It's part and parcel with Cagney's brash confidence, making it up as he goes along; he doesn't know thing one about cameras when he steps into the fireman's apartment, but he's got light fingers and quick eyes and he knows what to do with those. (It's a nice touch that for all his quick-thinking street-smarts, Danny is actually a crummy photographer most of the time: the triumph of his hot-seat snapshot is the photo editor shouting not just, "He got it! He got it!" but "And it's good!") I love Mac exchanging favors with the editor of the Record: "Your sheet's always crusading something!"—"What's Casey Nolan got on you?"—"Oh, no, we only dish dirt over here." He has just the right edge of irony, using his powers for good. And hey, once he gets over that headache at the end of the picture (Rob, incredulously: "That's his payoff?"), you really are sure he'll be all right.

A casual, sly, mocking malevolence that is often very funny (Faust flees from him at the crossroads only to find the demon sitting at every turn of the road home, tipping his cap with an impeccable, knowing courtesy as his eyes glow like mirrors above his wide, nearly frog-mouthed grin) .... evil, actively as well as incarnate ... It takes this Faust by surprise; he keeps forgetting that what he's made a pact with ... is not honorable and has no interest in keeping its word beyond the letter of whatever will ensnare the former scholar deeper into damnation.

--Wow, fascinating, makes me SO WISH I could see it. Plus, I'd like to see it just for the animated woodcuts and icons.

The pictures from the articles on opium smoking are creepy and thought provoking in all sorts of ways. Imagine if we did that with currently popular addictive substances--made beautiful and gorgeous accoutrements for them, I mean. The posed pictures are interesting: it means that someone, somewhere, already had an idea of what comprised an opium den, or at least, a portrait of an opium den, and then they put those things into a photo when staging such a thing. And how about the guys in New York? Apparently smoking opium is enough of a complete cultural practice that you adopt the pose of the people you're imitating (I don't just mean you lie down--though that too--but you lie down with your legs semi-curled and crossed that way). So was it not just the smoking, but the doing of an exotic thing, that attracted Westerners?

Glad to see Faust is making the rounds again. And I believe it is still on Netflix, if one wishes to go that route.

And I wonder if Murnau had an encounter with disease or plague at a young age...

Murnau grew up with the Third Plague Pandemic scrabbling around the edges of his world; it mostly affected Asia, Australia, and the Americas, but it did spread west through Russia, although it doesn't seem to have affected the European continent much.

However, like every other adult in Europe in the 1920s, he had survived the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic. I can see that reminding people in Europe of the plague.

However, like every other adult in Europe in the 1920s, he had survived the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic. I can see that reminding people in Europe of the plague.

I hadn't thought of that. I would believe it'd have resonated.

Glad to see Faust is making the rounds again. And I believe it is still on Netflix, if one wishes to go that route.

I'd never seen it, or heard of it being screened anywhere near me. It didn't have, for me, the complexity of Nosferatu (Count Orlok is an entirely different kind of evil and one you can talk about for weeks afterward without ever figuring him out), but I was incredibly glad to get it.

--Wow, fascinating, makes me SO WISH I could see it. Plus, I'd like to see it just for the animated woodcuts and icons.

Highly recommended! Especially if you can get it on a big screen; I don't think it would fail on a television, but the sheer immersive scale of it was definitely a factor.

Imagine if we did that with currently popular addictive substances--made beautiful and gorgeous accoutrements for them, I mean.

I am afraid I've just flashed on Denis Leary's "Drugs": "For years, pot was just joints. And then bongs came out, and bongs were okay, too, but then bongs weren't good enough for some people! Remember that friend in high school wanted to make bongs out of everything, making bongs out of apples and oranges and shit? Come home one day and find your friend going, 'Hey, look, man! I made a bong out of my head!' . . . What was the problem with just smoking a joint, eating a couple of Twinkies, and going to sleep? Was that a problem? They say marijuana leads to other drugs—no, it leads to fucking carpentry, that's the problem, folks!"

So was it not just the smoking, but the doing of an exotic thing, that attracted Westerners?

I don't see why the nineteenth century should have been any different from others in that respect.

I don't see why the nineteenth century should have been any different from others in that respect.

Well, true that! But I guess--hmmm. I guess it was just one of the clearest examples of it I've seen.

The marijuana carpenters
Are a most special breed
With their grins and red eyes
And their motley supplies

Their skills are not learnt
For new cupboards or shelves
It's for sweet Mary Jane
That they take up the plane

and so on....

I guess it was just one of the clearest examples of it I've seen.

I wasn't intending to shoot down your observation! I know very little about opium smoking as a Western reality other than a fantasy. It just struck me the pattern was consistent.

It's for sweet Mary Jane
That they take up the plane

HUZZAH.

This sounds good. And

derspatchel should be exposed to the fudge. It is an exceptional fudge.

I am writing in lieu of boiling my manuscript in a Christmas pudding. I am a little sad that the mincemeat didn't get made this year, must say. (Instead: a grapefruit-curd-and-ganache tart.)

And derspatchel should be exposed to the fudge. It is an exceptional fudge.

There will be fudge with his name on it. Or at least I will hand it to him, which is possibly even more useful.

I am writing in lieu of boiling my manuscript in a Christmas pudding.

I approve of this alteration in plans. It's hard to read pudding.

(Instead: a grapefruit-curd-and-ganache tart.)

Oh, well, how will your reputation ever recover!

*Return of the Adorable Seal Eyes*

Fudge?

*SEAL EYELASHES*

Oh, and speaking of excellent things, my daughter requested that we make your eggnog again.

Oh, and speaking of excellent things, my daughter requested that we make your eggnog again.

I'm so glad it's become a tradition!

Your viewing combination choices are, as always, far more interesting than my own. Steve put on Alien again last night and had it playing in the background of us putting Cal to bed, like some sort of moving, screaming art installation. I seem to recall this is exactly what my Mom once warned us not to do, before Cal was born, but the times I've seen him engaged enough with a live-action movie to be scared by what was happening onscreen are very minimal...maybe not even more than twice. And I don't think those were horror movies, either.

Steve put on Alien again last night and had it playing in the background of us putting Cal to bed, like some sort of moving, screaming art installation.

If he went to sleep with it . . .

but the times I've seen him engaged enough with a live-action movie to be scared by what was happening onscreen are very minimal...maybe not even more than twice. And I don't think those were horror movies, either.

Does he respond differently to live-action than to animation, then?

Edited 2012-12-20 19:58 (UTC)

We usually turn the soundtrack off and the close-captioning on when he's in bed, though not always. Not for Twins of Evil, for example.

As for animation vs. live-action, I've just very rarely seen him react to a live-action film with the same great love he feels for certain animated ones. He used to like Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but basically only for the musical numbers, whereas with animated films like Aladdin (yes yes, I know, but he likes it), he's actually picked up the dialogue and gone back over it again and again, no matter whether or not music is involved. Same thing for Princess and the Frog. (OTOH, we took him to see How to Train Your Dragon and he was strenuously bored, mainly because he worked out pretty quick that there were never going to be any songs at all.)

like some sort of moving, screaming art installation.

I love this. Some opportunistic would-be artist ought to do this, for real.

I know somebody made an installation which was basically just a giant fanvid of all the screams in Psycho played over and over, on a loop. Which might've been fun for, like, a minute, but... (shrugs)

Congratulations on the story reprint!

The Cagney film sounds delightful. I love young Ralph Bellamy. I just realized recently that it's Bellamy who plays the evil mansplaining Dr. Saperstein in Rosemary's Baby. I've seen the film a zillion times but never made the connection.

Congratulations on the story reprint!

Thank you!

I love young Ralph Bellamy. I just realized recently that it's Bellamy who plays the evil mansplaining Dr. Saperstein in Rosemary's Baby. I've seen the film a zillion times but never made the connection.

I'd never seen him earlier than his stuffed-shirt roles! He had a great face.

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Next time you want somebody ruined, call me up

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